Friday, July 29, 2016

Eileen and I stayed at the Hilton Americas when we went to the Angels v. Astros game. On the 24th floor, there's this great observation deck located just outside the indoor pool that has a great view of downtown. So after the game, Eileen and I went up and scouted it out. The funny thing is that you have to walk through the pool area to get there, so I felt a little weird carrying my camera through it to get to the deck. The deck is outside and has plexiglass above the railing to prevent people from falling or whatever else. I wanted to get an unobstructed view so I popped the tripod very carefully up on one of the planters - without disturbing the plants of course - and took about 5 sets of brackets and then got out. I didn't want to block the view for others too long so I just spent a few minutes and went back to the room.

What you see here is the final product. By the way, I'm not sure why the one building has the windows lit up with "USA" other than they must be getting excited for the Olympics, which is two weeks from the date I took this shot.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Eileen and I went to go see the Angels play the Astros last Saturday. We don't have a dog in the hunt for either one of these two teams, but we went for a couple of reasons.. One is that the Astros play in a retractable roof dome and the other is because the Angels have two potential hall of famers on their team; Albert Pujols and Mike Trout. So, there you have it!

This is a shot of Mike Trout during his first time at bat. I don't think he got a hit and neither did Pujols. I think Pujols even struck out at least twice. He struck out looking on one of them and he yelled at the ump and almost got kicked out. Poor Albert. If he keeps playing like that he might not make it to the HOF.

As far as the shot goes, I was hoping to get more of Mike's face in the shot. But from the angle we were sitting at, his head was down and his visor covered his face. I do have some shots that show more of his face, but I found them less interesting than this one. I liked this one because it shows the motion of the bat during his swing as well as the ball. I might post a couple more, but I thought this at least told a little bit more of a story than the others.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

This is another shot I took during my little tour of Vegas in the wee hours of the morning. I got kicked out by security not too long after I took this shot, too.. Why? I don't know.. There was hardly anyone there. Oh well.

One thing about this picture is that when I was there, I didn't realize there was this sort of piece of art made up of many different colored canoes as you see on the right. I didn't notice this as I shot it, nor did I notice it when I processed the first shot of the Aria I posted. But when I processed this one, I brightened them up to see what the heck they were and lo and behold, canoes! This leads me to my next question; why in the heck do they have a load of canoes glued together in the middle of City Center in Las Vegas? I have a feeling the answer is similar to the question, why do people climb Mt Everest? Because they can...

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

When we flew back from Lake Tahoe, we had to connect through Las Vegas. After we took off from Las Vegas to head to Austin, we had this excellent view of the canyons below. I'm not sure if this is part of the Grand Canyon or some of the gorges and canyons that connect to it. I feel it is the latter. Anyway, it was quite a site to see!

Monday, July 4, 2016

Happy 4th of July, everyone! Here's wishing you and yours a great holiday! Enjoy the fireworks and as always, thanks to all our servicemen and women for their service! We wouldn't be free without you!

So this is a shot of the US flag flying over the harbor at the town of Avalon on Catalina Island off the coast of California. I took this shot while Eileen and I were taking a self-guided golf cart tour of the island. It was fun, but went pretty quickly.

I meant to post this shot yesterday to celebrate today's holiday, but by the time I realized it, I had already posted the shot of Lake Tahoe. Oh well, at least I got this one out before the end of the day! ;-)

Sunday, July 3, 2016

Sticking with the California theme, this shot is from the Heavenly Mountain Resort on the California side of Lake Tahoe. I took this shot on the last day of skiing there during our trip last Feb.

It's fun to take a camera skiing, especially the Fuji X-T1 with the 18-55mm kit lens because it's a pretty small package to get some nice pictures while skiing. However, it's not a iPhone or something compact like that so it can still be a bit cumbersome, but it's better than a DSLR. Luckily - I guess - is that it was pretty warm on this day, so I could keep the camera hanging around my neck with my jacket unzipped instead of in a backpack. It made it easier to scope out good spots and shoot right away instead having to stop and pull the camera out of a backpack each time. Obviously, this was one of those spots. Pretty nice, eh?

Saturday, July 2, 2016

The Sun Deck Bar at the Hotel Del Coronado is a great place to enjoy a nice cocktail while the sun goes down over the ocean. Highly recommended if you ever get to San Diego. We stopped there for a nice meal on our first stop during our California trip last Oct to see the Steelers play the Chargers. Now that the Rams are back in California, I guess we'll have to go back to see another game. And, if the Chargers get a new stadium, we may have to see them again as well... Anyway, this is the bar outside the "Hotel Del" and it's a wonderful place. Check it out! And, if you get there at the right time, head to the water.. You never know if you might see some Navy SEALs training on the beach or in the ocean near there since the base is very close by...